The Forty-First Chapter

After they got home, Liu Mumu gave Dong Zhenghao the recipe for removing the Gu. Old Dong studied it for a long time before asking the same question his daughter had: "We need this much strong liquor. Couldn't we just mix alcohol with water?"

Liu Mumu spread her hands in disappointment. "No."

Dong Qi was so frustrated he nearly cried. "Am I even your son or not?!"

"Enough, enough. What are you shouting about? I was just asking." Dong Zhenghao wasn't pleased with his son's attitude. "If you hadn't been running around everywhere, would this have happened?"

"You're the ones who wouldn't let me come home! And her, too!" Dong Qi angrily pointed at Liu Mumu.

Dong Zhenghao glared. "What about her?"

Dong Qi sheepishly pulled his hand back. "...I-I'm lucky she was there."

Dong Qi needed a lot of liquor to remove the Gu. Fortunately, Dong Zhenghao had plenty of friends, so he got someone to help them find more than a dozen barrels of strong liquor. They also bought a small refrigerator specifically for freezing the iron block.

When the liquor was delivered to the Dong home, Liu Mumu went out to the courtyard to watch the commotion. Someone came out of the neighboring Zhang home, too: Zhang Yang, supporting his grandmother.

The grandmother and grandson both looked rather unwell. The old woman seemed listless and needed help just to walk. She was a far cry from how lively she'd been before.

Zhang Yang was doing better. Maybe it was because he was young and full of energy, but he still had dark circles under his eyes.

Only when she saw them did Liu Mumu belatedly realize that Zhang Yang had been staying with Dong Qi at his maternal grandparents' home. He might have caught it from Dong Qi.

After returning home, he might have passed it on to his family, too.

Liu Mumu hurriedly took out her phone and typed: I forgot to mention that Dong Qi may have infected other people at his maternal grandparents' home.

The notification chime broke the quiet in the room where the incident was being discussed. Fang Chuan looked toward Yan Xiu, who took his phone and walked out of the room.

A moment later, Liu Mumu received a call from Yan Xiu.

She found it a little strange. Yan Xiu wouldn't call her unless something important had happened. She answered and asked, "What's up? Is this serious?"

"It's not serious. Are you at home?" Yan Xiu walked into the living room with his phone. Sunlight filled the room, gilding him in a faint golden glow. His handsome, aloof profile made him seem almost as if he didn't belong to this world.

"Yeah. I only just realized today that he infected our next-door neighbors. There's a pregnant woman living there, too. Nothing's going to happen to her, is it?" Liu Mumu suddenly remembered that Zhang Yang's stepmother was pregnant and couldn't help asking.

"Don't worry. Once the Mother Gu is removed, the Child Gu will die off one by one. You can leave them alone."

"Really?" Liu Mumu still wasn't entirely reassured.

"Really. Besides, the Dream Gu only targets people with evil intentions. Ordinary people don't have that many evil thoughts. At most, they'll dream a little more often." Yan Xiu rarely took the time to explain things to her.

"All right, then. You can get back to work. I—"

"Wait." Before Liu Mumu could finish, Yan Xiu suddenly stopped her. "It's not safe outside lately. Try not to go out."

"You should say that to the bad guys who're plotting against me." Liu Mumu spoke with a grin.

She wasn't worried about her own safety, but she was still happy that Yan Xiu had taken the trouble to warn her.

Yan Xiu's lips curved slightly. "Be good."

"Got it."

After hanging up, Liu Mumu glanced at the neighboring house again. Old Mrs. Zhang seemed especially interested in the barrels of liquor being unloaded at the Dong home and tried to find out what they contained. Jiang Li could only make an excuse, saying it was hot spring water brought in from elsewhere. She planned to use it for baths because it was good for the body.

Old Mrs. Zhang shook her head. "You young people really don't know how to watch your spending. If your mother-in-law were still alive, she'd never let you waste money like this."

Jiang Li wasn't happy about being scolded by the older woman, but she didn't show it. After all, they were neighbors and saw each other all the time. There was no need to let things get too awkward.

Old Mrs. Zhang hadn't expected her to say anything anyway. She'd only been voicing her own displeasure.

She continued, "That woman in my house has been taking advantage of me not feeling well these past few days. Just because she's pregnant, she dares talk back to me. She won't even make breakfast anymore."

Jiang Li sympathized with Lü Yao. Her situation was much like Jiang Li's own back then.

Her first child had also been a girl, and she'd endured more than her share of grief at the time. Dong Zhenghao had been even worse than Zhang Shijing. Zhang Shijing was busy with business and away from home, but when he was there, he treated his wife well. Dong Zhenghao, on the other hand, thought his mother was right no matter what she said. Thinking about it still made Jiang Li angry.

So she couldn't help saying, "It's Lü Yao's first pregnancy, after all. Maybe she's having a rough time with it. It's normal if she can't get up in the morning."

Old Mrs. Zhang gave an unhappy snort. "We still had to work in the fields when we were pregnant. Why does she get to act so delicate?"

What bothered her even more was that Lü Yao was carrying a girl. But the master had said the child had a special origin, so Old Mrs. Zhang could only reluctantly accept it.

As they were talking, Lü Yao opened the door and came out. Perhaps because she was pregnant, she seemed to have put on a little weight. She looked well, her cheeks rosy. When she saw Jiang Li, she smiled at her, then said respectfully to Old Mrs. Zhang, "Mom, the meal's ready. Come back and eat."

Old Mrs. Zhang and Zhang Yang both looked at her with disdain. But the old woman was indeed a little hungry, so she had her grandson support her as they headed back inside.

As Zhang Yang passed Lü Yao, he deliberately didn't move out of her way. Their shoulders bumped, and Lü Yao staggered slightly.

Watching the family, Jiang Li couldn't help shaking her head. She was glad she hadn't had such a large stepson when she married Dong Zhenghao.

With all the ingredients ready, the family sat in Dong Qi's room that evening and waited for the right time.

Liu Mumu slouched in her chair, dozing with her head on Dong Yue's shoulder. On the first night, Dong Zhenghao hadn't trusted his son on his own, so he'd dragged Liu Mumu out of bed to keep an eye on him—and promised her a sports car.

Yes, Old Dong had given Liu Mumu the sports car he'd originally meant for Dong Qi.

Liu Mumu wasn't all that fond of cars, but she wasn't stupid enough to turn down a windfall.

Half the bathtub in the bathroom had already been filled with strong liquor, just enough for Dong Qi to lie in. When the time came, his father pressed him into the tub.

He'd thought it would be a simple bath, but the moment his body touched the liquor, it began to burn and sting. Dong Qi screamed and tried to leap out, but Dong Zhenghao and Jiang Li had been ready for that. Together, they held him down.

"Ah! Let me out!"

Jiang Li comforted him even as her heart ached for him. "Just hang in there. You'll be able to get out soon."

Liu Mumu watched from the side, taking the opportunity to gloat. "Are you sorry you faked your report card yet? Do you still want that sports car?"

"Wah, I don't want it anymore! I'll never want it again!" Dong Qi was already crying from the pain.

It felt as though his whole body had been smeared with chili sauce and then plunged into hot water. It was a truly intense sensation.

There wasn't a single part of his body that didn't hurt.

"Will you run away from home again?"

"No, I won't, boohoo..."

Dong Qi was crying so hard his nose was running. Liu Mumu kept questioning him while Dong Yue held up Liu Mumu's phone to record. They worked together so seamlessly, they looked like real sisters.

When Dong Zhenghao looked back, he saw his younger daughter quickly put the phone away. He couldn't help twitching his mouth. He felt like the kid had already been led astray.

Ten minutes later, Dong Qi finally climbed out of the tub. Then someone shoved an iron block into his mouth.

Half an hour later, when they took the iron block out, a layer of reddish, rust-like stuff had appeared on it. It wasn't very noticeable, but the stuff was clearly moving. It was alive.

And it had all come out of his body.

No one in the family dared touch it, so Liu Mumu used a pair of tongs to pull the iron block out of Dong Qi's mouth and toss it into the small refrigerator they'd prepared.

Dong Qi's mouth hung open as his whole body trembled. He looked as if he wanted to evict his mouth from his face. He'd probably have a psychological scar from this for a while.

"All right, go to bed."

After an hour of fussing, Liu Mumu lazily left everyone in the room behind and went to bed.

The others gradually went back to bed, too. Only Dong Qi kept frantically rinsing his mouth with water.

Early the next morning, since everyone had gone to bed late the night before, no one else in the family was up when Liu Mumu woke.

She hadn't eaten much the night before, and now she was a little hungry, so she decided to go out and find something to eat by herself.

On her way back, she picked up a bag of steamed buns to feed her younger sister.

As she reached the entrance to the residential compound, she suddenly spotted a man in a jacket and baseball cap pacing back and forth with his hands in his pockets.

He looked like he was waiting for someone—or trying to figure out how to get inside.

This man...

When she got a good look at him, Liu Mumu couldn't help stopping.

There was a black mole at the corner of his eye. When Dong Qi had described the professor who'd lectured them at the pyramid scheme, the thing that had left the strongest impression was that mole.

If she wasn't unusually lucky today and hadn't happened to run into someone else with a mole in the same spot, then she'd found the real deal.

Could this man have come here looking for Dong Qi? Liu Mumu wondered.

Xu Yonglin hadn't noticed Liu Mumu. He was trying to figure out how to get inside and approach the kid who'd taken his Gu worms.

He'd finally found the kid last time, only for the kid to suddenly move. It had taken him several more days to find out where the kid lived.

He'd meant to use those Dream Gu as feed for his other Gu worms. They'd taken a lot of effort to raise, so he couldn't just give up on them.

What Xu Yonglin hadn't expected was that the residential compound where the kid lived had such strict security. They wouldn't let him in at all.

While he was still puzzling over what to do, Liu Mumu walked over and smiled at him. "Want a steamed bun?"

Xu Yonglin froze for a moment. He looked down at what he was wearing. Surely he didn't look like a homeless person?

Back when he'd been at his most desperate and had nowhere to go, he'd occasionally met people who gave him steamed buns or bread. They'd been a lot like the young girl in front of him.

After hesitating, Xu Yonglin took the bag. "Thanks."

He'd left at six that morning to avoid his older brother, and he hadn't eaten anything. He was cold and hungry now.

"I noticed you earlier. Are you waiting for someone?" Liu Mumu asked curiously.

Xu Yonglin stuffed a bun into his mouth and barely managed to swallow it. Perhaps Liu Mumu seemed harmless, because he answered without much suspicion. "Yeah."

"If you tell me who you're looking for, I can go call him for you."

"Well..." Xu Yonglin looked embarrassed. "I don't know his name. He's a pretty big boy, sixteen or seventeen."

Seeing that Liu Mumu's expression seemed a little strange, he hurried to explain, as though afraid she'd misunderstand. "He took something of mine. I want it back. We don't actually know each other."

"That might be a little difficult. There are plenty of boys that age in this compound."

There were plenty of boys that age, but only so many troublemakers that big. The person he was looking for was probably her so-called little brother.

The thing he'd mentioned was probably the Gu in Dong Qi's body. What a coincidence.

Liu Mumu found his words rather interesting. He didn't seem like he meant to do anything to Dong Qi, though she couldn't tell whether he was sincere or just pretending.

It was her first time meeting a proper Gu Master, so she was inevitably curious. She took a closer look at his face. It looked so terrible that even she, with only a passing knowledge of physiognomy, could see something was wrong.

Judging by his face, he'd had a lonely, miserable first half of his life. In the second half, he'd face prison and an early death. Unless something unexpected happened, he'd be arrested soon.

But looking only at his face, his cheekbones were prominent without being overly so. He didn't look like a bad person. He might even have done good deeds that had changed his fate a little, though no matter how much that fate changed, the outcome would still be bad.

Xu Yonglin was starting to worry when his phone rang.

He hadn't been on guard around Liu Mumu, so he answered the call in front of her. "Brother?"

"Where are you? Why are you going out at a time like this? Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Xu Yongshuang's voice came through the phone.

"I went out to eat." Xu Yonglin didn't dare tell his brother what he was doing, so he made up an excuse.

"Come back right now."

"...Got it." After hanging up, he smiled at Liu Mumu. "I have to go."

He didn't wait for Liu Mumu to say anything else. Turning around, he started to leave.

He'd already walked several meters away when Liu Mumu called after him, "Mister, want me to tell your fortune?"

"What?" Xu Yonglin turned back, baffled.

"Let me tell your fortune. Ten yuan per reading. I can tell you what your luck will be like. I'm really accurate." Liu Mumu promoted her services with complete seriousness.

Xu Yonglin found it amusing. Had he run into a fellow practitioner? He knew this routine: first, use a steamed bun to get close to him, then take the opportunity to offer him a fortune-telling session.

But the bag of steamed buns she'd given him was worth at least ten yuan. He patted his pockets and actually found a ten-yuan note. After thinking it over, he came back. "All right, then. Tell my fortune."

He figured the girl had probably read a bit about fortune-telling online and wanted to try it out on someone. Since he'd already eaten her buns, he might as well humor her for a while.